Facebook, Google, Twitter execs hold secret meeting on elections

Executives from Silicon Valley’s top tech companies met on Friday to discuss how to prevent meddling on their platforms during the 2018 US midterm elections. It is not clear whether their discussion also covered the February 2019 elections in Nigeria, but the meeting came as Facebook, Google and Twitter had all taken steps last week […]

Executives from Silicon Valley’s top tech companies met on Friday to discuss how to prevent meddling on their platforms during the 2018 US midterm elections.

It is not clear whether their discussion also covered the February 2019 elections in Nigeria, but the meeting came as Facebook, Google and Twitter had all taken steps last week to remove accounts believed to be linked to Iranian and Russian information operations.

Facebook invited a dozen firms to convene at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, according to BuzzFeed News, which obtained an email detailing the meeting.

“As I’ve mentioned to several of you over the last few weeks, we have been looking to schedule a follow-on discussion to our industry conversation about information operations, election protection, and the work we are all doing to tackle these challenges,’’ Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, wrote in the email.

In addition to Facebook, representatives from Google, Twitter, Microsoft and Snapchat were all expected to be in attendance, BuzzFeed said.